


Respect existence or expect resistance

by bluebells



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Before the Awakening - Greg Rucka, X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Post-Film, Reincarnation, Spoilers for both films
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:06:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6986296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“If you live long enough, you start to see the same eyes in different people.”</em><br/>-- Maz Kanata</p><p>Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate –</p><p>Jean breathes and, for a moment, one brief moment in her long existence, she is braver than she is afraid.</p><p>Or the story where <em>Star Wars</em> and <em>X-Men</em> exist in the same universe, the Force works in mysterious ways, and Poe Dameron becomes the vessel of En Sabah Nur (Apocalypse).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Respect existence or expect resistance

Poe never played favourites with his Rapiers, but when he considers who they should seek first, who else might have made it to this tiny globe of life in a galaxy so very far away, he reaches out and Karé Kun emerges in his mind like a fern in a graveyard of power.

He finds Karé with her street band of youth. It is no surprise that she walks at the lead. Even now she cannot be divided from the skies, and the wind rushes to answer her call in the alleys of Cairo, but she is a force of nature, a storm tethered by ignorance, and she has no idea... no idea what she is capable of.

Stealing is beneath her. A goddess takes what she is owed.

She steels her spine when she sees what He can do. She invites Him to their modest hovel and offers to share what little they have.

Her generous heart is still the same, and Poe aches to provide her with everything.

_\-- and see, Poe, you're not so different, you would mine through the core of this earth to give your precious ones everything they wanted–_

\-- no, I wouldn't, gluttony is not… I would not -- 

_\-- let her starve, then –_

\-- I didn't say that

_\-- she knows the sweetness of compassion; I can be kind._

A sick dread worms through the hardened, immortal flesh of him.

\-- Please protect her.

_\-- She doesn't need protection._

The strange new syllables roll like heavy stones from his tongue, but Karé understands well enough, eyes bright when Snoke tips up her chin and hails her as a goddess (it's a hollow compliment, there's only one god on this earth and soon everyone will know Him, the weak will form the mortar of their new world, and every surviving knee will bow).

Karé gasps, eyes glazed white, and is glorified.

That's one.

///

One apprentice is not enough.

That is the old way, of the Sith, their traditions died with Sidious, and Snoke never cleaved to their ways. He was a god among insects, but even gods need their harbingers and heralds.

Four is a figure that has worked well for him in the years since.

They need information, and Snoke studies the box with its flat holocrons. It gently amuses him that civilisation in this pocket of the dark has finally advanced to the foothills of technological potential. When he arrived all those millennia ago, he had only begun to stoke the flames of civilisation, of progress. There will be time later to amend that.

First, he has to reclaim the grounds overrun with weeds, and he won’t cleanse them alone.

The Force crackles through the waves descending to the box. Snoke rides them back up, his will ascending to the skies, through telecommunications and repeater towers, he courses between information servers, and finds a name that will help them.

Caliban.

Poe dislikes the man on instinct, this man who smiles too easily and whose only loyalty is to the coin. But Snoke doesn't need currency.

The arrival of Caliban's enforcer would steal Poe's breath, if Snoke allowed Poe to be the one breathing.

He isn't sure until the enforcer thrusts her blades at their throats, Karé stiffens with the threat of violence in her glare, but Snoke smiles.

And Poe is certain.

Iolo. Iolo Arana.

The blade of energy glows with the same vivid colour Poe once beheld in the Keshian's incredible eyes. Oh, the Force manifests in so many interesting ways on this world, but Snoke recognises it surrounding, binding and transforming as easily as Poe recognises the soldier before him.

"What do you want?" Iolo asks. In this life, he is a woman and more deadly than the former pilot could have ever dreamed.

Or wished. Iolo was kind. They were all so kind.

Poe's grief makes Snoke smile. "I want you."

As Iolo’s new power ripples through her, she shudders, eyes bright in the reflection of her blade’s intensity. "I know the kind of mutants you're looking for." She glances at Caliban, unmoved by the man's mutinous look. "And I know where to find them."

And that's how she leads them to Muran.

Poor Muran, who limps and drags his ragged wing like he's still reeling from the explosion that took him from them all those millennia ago.

(Snoke reminds Poe that his Rapiers have seen many lives since he last saw them.)

And it shows. They're grim. They are hard. Existing is not easy. They lack all compassion and respect –

"You are all my children," Snoke forgives them, forgives Karé's sceptical appraisal of Muran's drunken stagger, because they do not know that they are more than this.

They were always meant to be more.

"I want to give you something."

Muran screams when his body rewrites flesh and bone. He died because his X-Wing was too slow to escape, too brittle, but his new wings are unbreakable and they will bear him from any danger.

Poe almost thanks Snoke.

His Rapiers. He has them. He has them back. He never thought –

_\-- We're not finished._

Poe does not recognise the man known as Erik Lehnsherr. But there's something familiar about his eyes. It isn't their colour, but their steel and resignation, the well of power long denied. And their pain. Erik is a man hollowed by loss.

"This is where your power was born," Snoke says. "And this is where your people were slaughtered."

Erik unleashes Magneto on the site of his rebirth in a roar of anguish, the earth is rent, and Snoke preens.

At ground zero of the destruction, the recognition hits Poe in horrific understanding.

 _Leia. Oh, Leia,_ Poe thinks, as the force of her rage banks them in a maelstrom of magnetic rings of power. Was the Force always so strong with her? _What have they done to you?_

///

"Are you an angel?" The boy asks in the first life they meet, and the Queen smiles, thinks he's charming.

He looks at her like no one ever has, without awe or fear. He is idle and curious, and with the inexorable passage of years, he will grow into the love of her life, a legendary warrior, beloved mentor, and a cloak of death.

Padmé Amidala passes with hope on her lips, the bruises of her husband's force grip still on her throat.

When they meet in the next life, the Queen is a soldier with a number but no name, whose heart has learned evil too well to deny the humanity of those they ask her to cut down.

In this life, she is reborn he. He is taken from his family; he is desperate, he is scared.

They raise him to be a soldier, but he is burdened with a sense that runs deeper than his marrow, that there are things that are right, and things that are wrong. He knows he can't kill for them.

He steals a pilot and earns a name.

He loses a friend but keeps the name.

Finn. Yeah. Yeah, he likes it.

When he meets the scavenger girl who bares her teeth in defence of a droid, when she glows with all the awe of standing in the presence of one who serves a cause that will save billions (pretends to, he lies)....

Finn's heart clenches. Padmé knows.

Anakin smiles at them through Rey's eyes, brighter than the sun on the blinding dunes of Jakku, and –- 

Ah. There you are.

///

The pilot lives.

His name is Poe Dameron, and he's the best damn pilot in the splinter cell of the Republic military.

He often walks in the company of his pilots. Black Leader, Commander. Poe is beloved by all, loves even more fiercely in turn.

Rey pushes his hair back to search his eyes as they lay to rest at night. Finn lies against her back and Poe's mouth curves to a smile that they can both trace by heart in the dark.

Poe believes in the Force. Poe is a legacy of the Republic and will give more than is due to see its work completed. Poe is the penultimate officer.

Poe is holding a secret.

///

_“Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you. You know it’s true.”_

_“… It’s too late.”_

///

Generations before, in a star system not far from here, the Force took human form to restore balance to the galaxy. But this form grew to a young wretch of misery, crippled by fear and helplessness as he raged for a power to protect those he loved.

He yearned to grow in strength until he could even shield them from death.

He would not come to this power.

Not himself.

///

“I didn’t agree to this.”

“It’s done.”

“You lied to me. You were supposed to give this to Rey. Snoke will know what you’ve done!”

“He knows.” The man known as Kylo Ren staggers to his knees, shaking and weak, but it is Ben Organa-Solo who catches himself on his hands. He can’t rest yet.

Snoke’s wrath courses like the blinding tides of a nova through the Force. Ben uses what strength remains to hold him back.

Now, nothing will ever harm Poe Dameron again. It’s too little, too late in recompense, but it’s what Ben has to offer, and he will not flinch under the ire of Poe’s disbelief. If Ben had the choice, he might have given this gift to his mother, if only she would accept it. Her favourite commander and guard would have to do.

“They’ll never believe you now—“ Of course Poe only thinks of the Resistance.

“They were never going to take me back.” Ben fists a hand at the waist of Poe’s jacket to right himself, pathetically grateful the other man doesn’t shake him off. He wouldn’t have the will to hold on. “Go. When the knights get here….” Their former master shakes his head, fringe dripping with sweat. “Don’t have the strength to protect you. Get out.”

Poe glowers down at him, rifle tucked against his side. Trembling, short of breath and now – untouchable. Ben has never seen anything more beautiful.

Except. Except, maybe –

His heart clenches at the thought of his mother.

“Rey’s the one who needed this power, _she’s_ gonna defeat Snoke,” Poe is saying.

Ben nods, finally understanding. She’s the only one who can do it, but she never needed Ben’s help; not like this. “And now you’ll live to see it.”

Poe grunts, wind knocked from his lungs as he’s thrown back into the escape pod, the hatch sliding shut behind him. Recovering, Poe throws himself against the sealed door, pounding a fist against the thick glass. “Ben! Open the hatch!”

It’s muffled, but worth everything to hear Poe say that name.

He huffs a laugh under his breath, shaking his head. “You still believe in me.”

Ben ignores Poe’s expression of panic, peering through the narrow window to lock the pod’s destination and override the controls with a flick of his wrist. This will bear Poe far, far away, and Poe may never forgive him, may find his way back in his typically resourceful way, but hopefully not before Ben’s work is done. Ben will be selfish one last time, and ensure the pilot is safe.

The pod whirrs to life, lights dimming as the pre-launch cycle initiates.

“Ben, don’t do this – he wants you! If he keeps you, he’ll be too powerful – you can’t!”

\-- Poe.

Poe winces like the mental interruption rings in his ears, settling with the finality of a heavy arm draped around his shoulders, pulling him tight.

\-- Ben is dead.

Poe looks with wide eyes from the locked console to his oldest friend who betrayed and brutalised him. Who came back to Poe and bore himself on his knees when he finally had something to broker for the chance of forgiveness.

“Only if you want him to be,” Poe searches his face, and that fire lights his eyes: the beacon that called to pilots in the black, shining on all the potential they couldn’t see of themselves, showing the way, calling them home. “Ben. Come _with_ us! Your mother—“

 _Tell her -- I love --_ Ben can't even think it without crumbling, this he keeps to himself. _And I’m sorry. And you… did you know about….?_

His chest burns for everything he’ll never deserve to say.

Instead, he glares down Poe’s earnest appeal.

\-- I’d better not see you again. He can’t find you. If he gets all of us, it’s over.

Poe slams his fist against the glass, fighting to the last. He looks furious. “Stop doing that! Use your words, damn it, I know you can hear me! He’ll kill you, you can’t do this—“

Of course he can. He’s the heir of Darth Vader and son of the General. “Don’t worry.” As if Poe would, but Ben can dream.

His last vision of Poe is his stricken face awash in red as Ben’s renewed lightsaber crackles to life at his side.

Ben smiles, grim, elated. For the first time in decades, he feels… lighter. “No one’s going to take me alive.”

The pod jettisons, and Poe is gone.

///

Finn will always protect Rey, even from herself. He will not lose her ('again', his mind almost supplies, until he can question what soul deep ache it's born from). He crushes Rey against him as she cries, gasping, keening sounds, and she would crumble to the cold flight deck without Finn's arms around her.

The Knights of Ren are strewn like severed puppets on every level of the starship.

It was finished before they even arrived. There is no one left to confront them.

Rey stares in horrified miscomprehension at the knights’ wounds, the charred signature of flesh and bone cleaving to a lightsaber.

“None of them are carrying lightsabers,” Finn murmurs.

Rey’s own lightsaber hums to silence as Finn reaches over to turn it off, hand lingering over hers.

“He was here. He was – I felt it,” Rey shudders, voice thick with tears. “He’s gone.”

Is she talking about Poe? Or Ren?

Finn thumbs the tears from her cheek and tucks her against his shoulder. Inside, a part of him is broken wide open, the chamber of him where Poe had made his place.

"We'll find him. I swear, Rey. No matter what it takes. We won't stop until we find him."

Rey clings back to him, and they start the search.

The weeks pass and Snoke is still out there. Kylo Ren is nowhere to be found. They wait on word of Poe. Star systems fall, and still they search.

Months stretch unimaginably into years.

They keep fighting. They keep searching. They never give up.

The years pass.

///

The years pass, and Poe fights.

He runs, he fights, he is marooned, and Snoke finds him.

"Ben’s dead? You killed them?" Poe finally allows himself to weep, because that’s the only way Snoke is standing before him, despite the thousands of years and space that have stretched between them.

_Dad. Finn. Rey. Leia. Kare. Iolo…._

“I did.” Snoke smiles. He is wearing a new face, already weathered with deep cracks of strain.

Poe swallows at the four silent figures cloaked on horseback that close at his flank. His grief anchors his feet. He won’t run anymore. “You can’t kill me, you know.”

Snoke grins, eyes glazing to white. “I’m counting on it, Commander.”

///

Over many lives and across the universe, the Force changes with the passage of millennia: blending, binding. Mutating.

A young soldier's promise echoes across the stars, "No matter what it takes."

Scott Summers is born with an oath in his heart, brimming to fire in his eyes.

_I'm pretty good with a blaster._

He has been a queen, a nameless trooper, with a legion of lives spent searching in between, but always, always servant to a cause. This time, the order is much simpler for him.

Be a brother. Be someone’s kin.

And when he fails at that, the order changes.

"Not all of us can control our powers," he admits to the sometimes-blue blonde who leads them, the one whose eyes are glacial calm.

She frowns at him now, Mystique. Raven? Which is it? "Then don't."

Beside him in the warplane, Jean is trembling from more than the turbulence, and Scott wants to take her hand.

He wants to tell her that he's scared, too. He wants to ask her what else didn't he know about his brother.

He should tell her that she shouldn't be scared, because she makes him brave. He should tell her he's going to live up to his brother's hopes for him.

He fumbles for her hand, staring straight ahead when she blinks at him in shock. He says nothing, can feel the warmth of her shy, startled smile a moment later.

Jean squeezes his hand back, and she's still smiling at him from the corner of her eye when he summons the courage to look.

Nobody's ever held his hand like this before.

Across the plane, Peter smirks with a raised eyebrow and nods in approval.

///

"Charles. Will you do nothing?" Apocalypse taunts.

Mystique dangles from his hand, eyes bulging, gasping for breath.

_He’s going to kill her._

Charles Xavier floods into the mind of a god and almost breaks apart as millennia of power and personas ricochet back at him.

And memories.

The creature under his hands has gone by many names, but one strikes Charles like a blade between his eyes.

Snoke.

_He has Mystique. He has Ahsoka. You remember Ahsoka. Please._

In another life, they called Charles ‘Master’, but when they came to him for guidance, dressed in robes with blades of light, he failed them. And they were slaughtered.

 _All this time…._ Charles’s stomach drops away in horror. They called him ‘Luke’ once, but Snoke won’t do him that favour. ‘Luke Skywalker’ and the legacy of the Republic have been scoured from living memory.

Luke (Charles) remembers now.

A long time ago, they lost. But nothing is lost forever in the Force.

In the mental confrontation of wills, Luke’s body buckles as Snoke rears back for a moment in shock.

“You betray me?”

Luke hears the quiet anger, the audacity of Snoke’s _hurt,_ as though from down a long tunnel of water.

“No,” comes the answer. “I betrayed them.”

Leia is here. Luke aches with the familiarity, he finally understands why this other person was so tied to his soul. Luke can feel her, throws out his senses and feels the curl of reassurance that answers him. Erik is with them once more.

And then, there! The stormtrooper. Scott. There’s something behind that power, something… or someone he recognises, though never knew –- but they're not the ones he needs.

A building away, Luke appeals to his pupil -- his padawan.

"Jean. Help… me. Help us. Let go."

Luke was their mentor. He was supposed to guide and protect them.

_\-- It’s over, Charles. You’re mine now._

He's going to fail again. He can't do this alone.

"Jean.”

Once, there was a little boy who was so afraid, crippled by fear and helplessness as he raged for an impossible power to protect those he loved.

“Jean. No fear.”

Bloodied and beaten, Luke is barely aware of the moment the doors to Cerebro slide open and Jean… Rey... Anakin strides through.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate –

Jean breathes and, for a moment, one brief moment in her long existence, she is braver than she is afraid.

///

It takes Scott a long time to recognise them.

He is blind to the target of his true mission that has sustained him through the ages even as it takes him in its invisible grip, and binds him in soil and stone.

Snoke smiles at Scott in the face of his oldest friend, and Scott does not recognise him.

But then Jean emerges like the heart of a sun in the flames of an ancient power, reverberating through him, the earth trembles, and Scott can’t breathe.

Jean... Rey... Anakin.

_The Force is strong in my family._

"Rey," he mourns, as Beast shoulders him to cover. "Kept that promise. We found him."

It's true, and it isn't.

Scott clenches a hand to his stomach because the trooper in him has failed his mission.

"God... Poe, what did they do to you?"

///

\-- If you won’t respect existence, expect… resistance.

Poe smiles when the lightning strikes, when Karé joins the fray with a scream, and the flesh is stripped from his body.

Snoke, himself, is awed, finally witnessing the legacy of the power in Jean that was promised, the power he usurped from its last descendant, his own apprentice, before he extinguished that bloodline.

_\-- All is revealed._

Poe had no idea death would feel so triumphant.

**Author's Note:**

> Pro-tip: When sketching reincarnation stories, matrices really help.
> 
> This is what happens when your faves star in two massive franchises within six months of each other. After I left the cinema after watching _X-Men: Apocalypse_ , I couldn't get this out of my head. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.
> 
> It's been a good year for Oscar Isaac. Most of us in Star Wars fandom can at least agree we would probably lay down our lives for Poe Dameron, come join me on [tumblr](http://bellsyblue.tumblr.com/) where #OscarLives now and forever, amen.


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